Thursday, March 25, 2010

Myer's Meltdown

March 13th Quote Headline in the Orlando Sentinel “Urban Meyer at Orlando Function: ‘I feel good and I’m ready to go.’” What a difference nearly 2 weeks make.

This starts Tuesday of this week and continues thru Wednesday practice. The full context is that Deonte Thompson makes a quote to a reporter after practice, Jeremy Flower, of the OS, writes it up, the story appears in print Wednesday. Coach Myer confronts the reporter later that same day at practice and now another OS reporter Mike Bianchi makes his assessment coming in the Thursday’s edition of that fish wrap.

And here’s the original quote from Thompson in which he compared new Florida quarterback John Brantley with the iconic Tim Tebow. You be the judge.

“Things are going to get better here in the future,” Thompson said. “Any receiver would be happy. You have a guy like (John) Brantley throwing the ball, spreading it around to everybody. … You never know with Tim. You can bolt, you think he’s running but he’ll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything’s with rhythm, time. You know what I mean, a real quarterback.”

A real quarterback. That was the part of the quote a lot of bloggers, including myself, picked up on. But if Meyer bothered to read (sic.. the story) – which obviously he didn’t — he would realize that both of us pointed out that Thompson might have just worded his quote wrong. Instead of implying that Brantley is a “real quarterback” and Tebow isn’t, Thompson probably meant to say Brantley is a more conventional dropback passer and Tebow isn’t.

At any rate, Thompson was quoted correctly and reasonable people can interpret the quote however they want.

And that’s why Meyer, drama queen that he is, was totally unreasonable and wrong to threaten Fowler and the Orlando Sentinel with banishment from UF —or even perhaps a physical beatdown. Watch it here

Remember, Urban, WWTD — What Would Timmy Do?

Certainly not this …

“You’re a bad guy, man. You’re a bad guy,” Meyer said, pointing a finger at Fowler’s face. “If that (Thompson) was my son, we’d be going at it right now. … You’ll be out of practice — you understand that? — if you do that again. I told you five years ago: Don’t mess with our players. Don’t do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear?”

This is almost like when Meyer said former UF quarterbacking great Shane Matthews (although he never mentioned him by name) was not welcome at UF.

Gee, Urban, I thought you were just the coach of the Gators. Who knew you were the king of the Gators – able to banish alumni and media from the program by power of royal decree?

Puh-leeze.

And Meyer had the audacity to call a reporter “a bad guy?” Really? Seriously?

I always thought a bad guy was someone who breaks the law or commits crimes. You know, like many of the recruits Meyer has brought onto UF’s campus – recruits who been arrested nearly 30 times since the coach arrived five years ago.

And if Meyer was so upset about Thompson’s quote being blown out of proportion, why did Meyer bring even more national attention to it by unprofessionally accosting a reporter? What Meyer should have done Wednesday after practice is call all of UF’s beat reporters together and explain how Deonte Thompson is a young player who perhaps misspoke and maybe sometimes the media should remember that and give a player the benefit of the doubt.

Of course for Meyer to take that approach would require him to build a relationship with the state media – something he hasn’t bothered to do since he took over five years ago.

At the very least, Deonte Thompson’s message was this: He believes Brantley will be a better quarterback for UF wide receivers than Tebow was.

And you know what? He’s probably right.

But just like everything else involving Tebow – from his throwing mechanics to his TV commercials to his autograph signing sessions to his post-game pledges – Thompson’s quote took on a life of its own and was blown way out of proportion.

Apparently Urban needs more time away. What happens when Corch Meyer looses 3 games this year?